Over 819 Million Land Animals Slaughtered by Canadian Meat Industry in 2018

April 29, 2019

Government slaughter reports analyzed by Animal Justice show that the Canadian meat industry is slaughtering more animals for food than ever before. A record-breaking 819 million land animals were killed in Canadian slaughterhouses in 2018—up from 800 million in 2017, 771 million in 2016, and 750 million in 2015. Most of the increase is because more and more chickens are being killed for meat, due to population growth, and a steady rise in per capita consumption of chickens.

But these numbers don’t paint the full picture. At least 41,282,000 chicks at were killed at hatcheries in 2018, most of them male chicks who were ground up alive because they are worthless to the egg industry. An additional 1,724,000 turkey chicks were killed in turkey hatcheries.

Canada also exported 5,885,837 live cows, pigs, sheep, and horses to the United States in 2018, and 17,984,215 live chickens and other birds. Millions more animals are exported by ship and air to other countries.

The government has concealed horse slaughter stats for the last two years, to “respect the business confidentiality of the horse-processing industry,” so tens of thousands of horses killed are not accounted for here. (In 2016, the last year for which data is available, over 54,000 horses were slaughtered.)

The government hasn’t yet released 2018 slaughter stats for deer, elk, bison, wild boars, or rabbits, but 627,303 of these animals were slaughtered in 2017.

Other animals killed by the meat, dairy, and egg industries outside of slaughterhouses are also not accounted for in this analysis, including the millions of animals who die prematurely of illnesses and injuries on farms or during transport, and the millions of animals who are so sick and injured that they are condemned when they arrive at slaughter.